A trial resembling a mini-New Zealand Cup today should tell northern trainer Brent Mangos where South Coast Arden is at on the road to the great race.

The IRT NZ Cup at Addington is less than seven weeks away and for all the heroics of pacers like Copy That, Akuta and Alta Wiseguy so far this spring, many of the biggest names in the industry meet in a simple trial at Rangiora.

Pacing’s excitement machine Akuta could be about to embark on one of the most unusual New Zealand Cup campaigns in the history of the great race.

A New Zealand race designed to showcase the lesser lights of harness racing may help further illuminate one of its new stars at Addington tonight.

The $40,000 Harness 7000 is a great concept, the race restricted to the stock of stallions who stood at $7000 or less at conception, meaning it isn’t open to those by all-time stallion great Bettors Delight or others close to him in the market.

A spectacular trial at Rangiora last week could help Muscle Mountain make a winning return at Addington tonight but not for the usual reasons.

The giant trotter with the motor to match provides one of the highlights of a hot meeting at Addington tonight as he takes on some outstanding rivals, while the open class pace is the next step to the IRT New Zealand Cup and the All Stars start to roll out some of their elite three-year-olds.

Pacing’s pocket rocket is both bigger and stronger for his return to racing at Alexandra Park tonight and Merlin is going to need to be as a mammoth back-end to the season looms.

The road to the IRT New Zealand Cup begins for two Derby winners at the Rangiora trials on Wednesday, but only one of them is certain to still have the great race on his radar in a couple of week's time.

The hard man of New Zealand pacing may not be ready to be quite so hard at Addington tonight.

Which is why trainer Geoff Dunn thinks Laver will need a hot pace set up by his rivals to have any chance in the $30,000 Maurice Holmes Vase, the next step on the road to the IRT New Zealand Cup.

Cambridge harness racing bosses are set to double down on the enormous success of The Race By Grins to create the richest night in New Zealand harness racing history.

A horse who was a maiden when Copy That won the New Zealand Cup just nine months ago could rain on his comeback parade at Alexandra Park tonight.

Old Town Road may still have only won five races compared with Copy That’s 24 victories but their workout performances last week and handicaps tonight suggest Old Town Road can beat the glamour pacer in their 2200m clash.

New Zealand’s biggest race day is “starting to feel like the old days again” but there is a crucial part of the puzzle Addington officials want to add to New Zealand Trotting Cup Day.

Champion Australasian harness driver Dexter Dunn may be on top of the world but he says there is one race victory back home he still craves.

Dunn, who set a world record for a harness racing mile on Saturday night, hungers for a New Zealand Cup but he says it's not enough of a lure to bring him home yet.

Outstanding harness driver Zachary Butcher is going to try what no other New Zealand horseman has been able to successfully pull off before: becoming a true inter-Island reinsman.

Butcher has revealed his plans to start travelling every weekend between his base in the North and Canterbury to drive at predominantly Addington for Friday night meetings.

Victorian owner Jean Feiss could be excused for not being able to wait to get her glamour boy Self Assured back to Australia to show him off.

But, after winning a second $400,000 Trillian Trust Auckland Cup with the wonderful little pacer at Alexandra Park on Friday night, she says taking him back to Australia really doesn’t worry her.

Nobody could be in a better position to rate Self Assured’s main dangers in tonight’s $400,000 Trillian Trust Auckland Cup than Natalie Rasmussen.

Which has a touch of irony because when the outstanding reinswoman jumps in the sulky behind the hot favourite tonight it will be the first time she has done so for a race.

The sulky-go-round leading into Friday’s $400,000 Trillian Trust Auckland Cup has stopped with Natalie Rasmussen to now drive hot favourite Self Assured.

And that puts the great race’s most successful ever driver, Tony Herlihy, on Spankem, the horse Rasmussen drove to second the last time the Cup was run.

Champion horseman Mark Purdon has a very special desire to win the main pace at Alexandra Park tonight but fears his superstar pacer Self Assured could spend much of the race chasing.

Rival drivers like David Butcher are hoping he is right.

Purdon co-trains three of the six starters in the first running of the $75,000 Roy Purdon Memorial, the race named in honour of his legendary father who died in February.

The players in tonight’s NZ$50,000 McMillan Feeds Flying Mile at Cambridge tonight have a common goal: they all want to be in the same place in the running.

Considering seven horses don’t fit into one, or at a pinch two positions, that could make for a thrilling start to the next feature on the open class pacing autumn tour.

Self Assured looks set to take his road less travelled to a place he knows very well in the NZ$100,000 Dawson Harford Messenger at Alexandra Park tonight.

The glamour pacer has been backed off the board to win tonight’s Group 1 and cap a remarkable month in which he has already won the inaugural running of The Race at Cambridge then finished a booming third to stablemate Spankem in the Taylor Mile last Friday.